Sand & Water
by colormetheworld
Summary: Tumblr Prompt: Sand & Water by Beth Nielson Chapman. Note the rating. Major Character Death. Happy(ish) Ending.


Ari is difficult from the moment she is born. She screams into the world four days late, with a full head of jet black hair, and when her eyes open to look up at her mothers, they are as clear and crystal blue as the Atlantic.

She is a beautiful baby, Jane's miniature features cut more finely. Her small, infant hands are delicate, like a doll's.

They swaddle her, bathe her, feed her. Maura sings her French lullabies, Italian ballads. Waltzes.

Ari cries and cries. The wailing is endless. She screams as though they have wronged her. As though she has been kidnapped. Beaten. The word Colic is not a comforting one. Knowing the cause does not bring either of them closer to curing it. Ari balls up her fists and scrunches up her face and she yells.

"There're no tears," Jane says one evening. She is holding Ari in her arms, against her chest. She has circles under her eyes and last night she whispered to Maura that she wished her mother were still there to help them. "She's not crying any tears."

Maura nods. "Not for another few weeks or so," she says. "Newborn babies don't cry tears."

Jane looks down at Ari, tired half smile. "We live with a doctor," she says softly. "Your mommy is the best doctor in the whole world."

Maura smiles, and fights down the frustration that rises when their daughter only stops crying to pull in a long, shaky breath. Jane looks up at Maura, and she can see her own worry and exhaustion and fear reflected back at her.

Jane is a dedicated, nervous, intense new mother. She takes the offered maternity leave, and then two thirds of her paid leave time. Maura does the same, and in the two weeks when their time overlaps, Maura discovers she _adores_ her detective as a mother.

She discovers that _resents_ their daughter for not adoring her too.

Ari won't latch. She seems uninterested in even trying. Jane spends hours working at it. Days. She has a patience that she usually reserves for her cases, for victims unwilling to share all of the details, or suspects just on the brink of confession. She stays up late, even when nothing will stop the little girl's crying. Her hands shake pouring coffee in the morning.

Maura coaxes Jane out of the nursery and into the city for a walk.

"I'll take care of Ari for a little bit. Clear your head, honey. Take an hour or two." Maura can see the guilt turning inwards, becoming blame. There is nothing wrong with Ari. She is a month old. Too new to have any blame assigned to her, and Maura did not birth her. No, this must be _Jane's_ fault.

"Call Frost," Maura suggests, holding the fussy baby on her shoulder, opening the door with the other. "Call Frankie. Go to the Robber."

Jane blinks, nods, shuts the door as quietly as possible.

Maura finds her three hours later, asleep in the driveway in the back of her cruiser.

…

Ari doesn't sleep through the night at one, or two. Or five.

She wakes them up at night to tell them about the dreams she had. Why she cannot go back to sleep.

"There was a castle," she says, "There were princesses inside, and one cut the other one's tongue out. Then she couldn't say her name."

She climbs into bed between them and sleeps for three hours, the hot and sweaty sleep of a toddler, clinging to Jane as she never does when she is conscious.

Neither mother sleeps again, however. They stay awake for the rest of the night holding hands, not talking.

In first grade, Ari bites a boy in her class hard enough to draw blood, and when Maura and the teacher confront her about this, she admits it without guilt. She stares at the doctor with those glass blue eyes and says, quite evenly,

"He made me angry."

Jane and Ari have fights that Maura thinks might actually shake the foundation of their home. Sometimes she does not get there in time to diffuse the bomb before it detonates, and so she can do nothing but sit at the kitchen table (in the living room, on the edge of her bed with the door to the hallway cracked open) and listen to the shrapnel as it tears open the skin of the two people she loves most in the world.

She holds her twelve year old daughter after one such explosion as she sobs in her arms. She is old enough to cry real tears, has been for a long time now, but the emotion that has been the catalyst is not despair, but fury. A deep and dangerous ball of rage that cannot be eased no matter what her parents do.

"My sweetheart," Maura murmurs into her hair. "I'm here."

But Ari pulls away, furious again, wiping her tears. "You're not!" she yells. "I'm alone. I'm all alone!"

"You're not alone," Maura says, calm though she wants to scream. "You have never been alone, Ariana. Mama and I are here."

Ari shakes her head, slowly. "I was alone when I was born," she says, taking a deep breath. "I came into the world alone, and I'll die that way. You don't understand."

It is this last sentence that really shakes Maura, because Ari doesn't say it angrily, or sadly. She is not accusing her mother the way pre-teenagers do. She makes the statement like a fact. As though there is no way to contradict it.

 _You do not understand._

She climbs into bed with them that night, the first time she has done so in almost two years.

"Mommy," she says into the hollow of Maura's throat. "What's inside of me? Am I just sand and water? Am I just compression?"

Maura holds her as tightly as she can. She meets Jane's eyes over the top of her daughter's head.

She doesn't answer.

…

…

Jane's 50th birthday is the first one they celebrate without Ari. Their teenager has run away, leaving behind most of her possessions and a note with a single sentence.

 _I don't think I'm like anybody else._

It's been almost eight months to the day since she disappeared, and it takes Maura almost an hour to convince Jane to go to the bar for her birthday.

"You're fifty, Jane."

"You keep saying that as though it will motivate me."

"Everyone just wants to show you how much you mean to them."

Jane wrings her hands together.

"There's cake," Maura wheedles, and when Jane smiles reluctantly, Maura kisses the side of her mouth. "I'll play that game I hate," she says. "You know, the one with the iphone on the forehead?"

This, it seems is the clincher. Jane hugs her, smirking. "Heads Up? You promise?"

As if Maura wouldn't promise her anything in the world just to see that smile again.

The party at the Dirty Robber is supremely well attended. Frankie makes a toast that makes almost everyone a little teary.

He and Jane have spent countless hours in the car in the past six months, searching the streets and the shelters, bus stops and train stations. The Amber Alert went up in close to record time, and watching her daughter's picture flash on the news for three nights in a row did something to Maura's ribcage that is not dissimilar to what a steamroller might do. None of it brought them closer to finding Ari. She simply vanished. Maura could see the fear turning hard inside of Jane. Becoming scar tissue that would never fade.

But the party is good. It is what they need, though she knows they will pay for it later. She has not seen Jane really let go and laugh like this in a long time. She might officially be 50, but the lines of her forehead are almost non-existent. She looks years younger.

The cake is big and half ice cream, and when Jane leans to blow the candles out, Tommy pushes her head into the frosting, earning a whoop from the gathered crowd. Maura laughs, until Jane wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her in for a kiss.

It is the sweetest kiss she's had in a long time, and not just because there's frosting involved.

They get home late, and as Jane pushes the door to the front hall open, she calls out, "Ari! We're ho-" making it almost through the last word before the recollection hits her hard.

Maura is there to catch her, though she has a harder time stopping the spiral.

"Fuck."

"Jane. It's okay."

"I forgot. _Fuck,_ Maura. I _forgot."_

"I did too, love. You're okay. Breathe. It is okay to breathe for a little while."

"I should be out looking for her. I can't believe I did that. I can't believe I let them throw that stupid…I should be out _looking_ for her."

Jane struggles to her feet, angry. Maura follows her into the living room, ready for the storm.

"Jane."

"She's _missing_ , Maura. I don't have a right to fucking kick back like-"

"She ran away," Maura interrupts. She is not angry, but she will play the part, if that's what needed. "She _left_. And it's not because of something you did, and it's not because you didn't try hard enough."

Jane wants to cry, has _wanted_ to cry for a long time. There are tears in her eyes that she holds back, and Maura wonders at the difference between her wife and her daughter, that has given them the same exact mannerisms and such different ability of expression.

"Ma would be so… _fucking_ disappointed in me," Jane chokes out finally. "The one thing she always wanted from me, and not only does she not get to see it, but I can't even…I can't…"

Maura has her in her arms then, holding her tightly. She kisses the detective's neck, her throat.

"No," she says. "Not a chance."

She leaves hard, open mouthed kisses on Jane's sternum, until she feels the relaxing of muscles that indicates consent, and then she begins to unbutton her shirt.

It is 11:30pm on a Wednesday night, but they are going to have sex in the middle of the living room with most of the lights still on. The idea of it alone makes Maura gasp. She wants her wife with a growing intensity that will not be ignored. Her hands come in contact with the smooth skin of Jane's sides, and she moans. Jane growls in return. She walks them to the couch without letting go, and then pushes Maura backwards, following after her, helping her out of her bra.

"God, you are beautiful," Jane says.

Maura smiles, pushing some of the other woman's hair behind her ear.

"How is it I get you, day after day? How is it that someone like me…" she trails off here, her expression clouding over.

Maura puts her hand on Jane's cheek gently before sliding it around to the back of her neck and pulling her in for a kiss. They stay like that for a long time, just kissing, working each other up, until Maura can't hold back any longer.

She slides a hand into Jane's waistband, groaning when her fingers meet wetness and warmth.

"I love you," Jane gasps, bucking against her. "Jesus. I love you so much."

Ari stopped saying those words around the same time she started middle school. Jane or Maura would say it to her as usual, and she would freeze for a split second, as though the words caused a short circuit in her brain. When it became clear that she would not be returning the sentiment, that it seemed even to distress her to hear it from either parent, they stopped saying it to her.

It is only now that Maura realizes that they stopped saying it to each other as well.

Now Jane wavers on the edge of her climax, hips flexing hard against Maura's. She moans the words against Maura's neck, over and over.

"I love you too," Maura says. "God. Me too. Yes, honey that's it."

Two hours later they are still there, wrapped in each other on the couch. Jane is dozing, and Maura is pulling her fingers through her tangle of curls.

"We're okay," she says against the brunette's temple. "We're okay."

…

…...

Jane does not get to see Ari again. She does not get to see her 51st birthday.

Maura goes alone to identify her daughter's body, though Frankie offers, and Frost almost forces himself into the car.

The drive to New York is long, and seems to take no time at all. It is as though she blinks in the car and then she is standing in the morgue, looking at a young woman who is most definitely her child. There are Jane's cheekbones.

There are Jane's lips, set in a thin line as though Ari has seen something only mildly amusing.

"Oh, sweetheart," she says quietly, and though she has prepared herself for it, though she has felt it thousands of times before, she is not ready for the way it feels to touch her child as a corpse.

"Oh, _Ari,_ " she says. She is choked up. She is crying. Her actions and emotions happening in the jerky, off balance way of poorly done stop animation film.

When did she bend to put her head against Ari's?

How long has she been holding her hand like this?

The doctor that brought her in, (Rogers? Robbins?) she is touching Maura on the shoulder, leading her gently away.

Maura has spent an hour with Ari's body. The doctor is right, that is enough time.

"Dr. Isles. You're alone today?"

Maura is sitting in the doctor's office. She is holding a cup of coffee. "I am always alone," she says before she can stop herself.

"No, I'm sorry," she smiles at the other woman weakly. "Yes. I'm alone here today. Ari's birth mother, My wife, she passed away almost two years ago."

"I'm so sorry," The doctor says, sounding genuine. "Was it sudden?"

Maura nods, and then shakes her head. "She was a detective, and she died in the line of duty. So yes, and no."

"I see."

They sit in silence, and gradually Maura has the presence of mind to realize that the doctor is trying to figure out how to give her some additional information.

"You don't have to worry about my feelings," she says. "Whatever else you need to tell me, I won't fall apart."

Dr. Rogers (yes, that is what the diploma says behind the woman's head) smiles. "I'm not sure this news is bad," she says. "Ariana-"

"Ari," Maura interjects, continuing on at the confused look this earns her. "She hated the name Ariana with a passion. When she was nine she filled out all of the court paper work to have her named changed to Air Isles."

Maura leaves out that Ari also wanted to be emancipated.

Dr. Rogers smiles. "My apologies. Ari told her attending before she died that she hadn't seen, or been in contact with, you or your late wife in several years."

"Six," Maura says, giving a grateful look at the doctor for calling Jane her wife. "Six years."

Dr. Rogers nods. "Right. Well, there's no way to say this that isn't a shock, so here it is. Ari gave birth to a son. Three days ago. It's one of the things that sped up her passing, I'm afraid. He's upstairs, in our NICU right now and I-"

But Maura is standing.

She is turning to the door.

"Take me to my grandson," she says, not angry, but also not willing to continue to talk. Not until she sees him.

Dr. Rogers knows better than to argue with her.

The bundle of blankets that they put into her arms is too small and slightly jaundice. He has been crying since she walked into the room, but when she settles into the rocker and presses his little body to her chest, he quiets.

"Did she name him?" Maura asks, not looking away from him.

"No," Dr. Rogers says. "She didn't want to hold him." Maura is grateful for the neutrality the doctor's voice.

"He's been snuggling with some of our volunteers," she continues. "But no one has been as successful as you are so quickly."

The baby wrinkles his tiny brow, turning his head to look at Maura. She waits for him to open his eyes, wondering if they will be the same unblemished blue his mother's had been.

He looks at her, squinting like he's seen her before and can't quite recall.

Maura finds that she is laughing, even though tears are now falling down her cheeks, spotting the blanket that wraps around them both.

She laughs and shuts her eyes, and feels like perhaps she will not be alone for very much longer.

"Why, James Air," she says softly, still laughing. Still crying.

"You have your Nona's eyes."

…

…

"Mom! C'mon! Keep up!" Jai races ahead of her on oversized feet, his long limbs, new as if overnight, just barely under his own control. He is a sensitive, sarcastic, brave, loving little boy, and when it is clear that his mother cannot keep up with his wild enthusiasm, he circles back to take her hand.

Maura brings it to her lips for a quick kiss. "Mi dispiace," she says.

"Desculpe, lo siento," he chirps. "Je. Suis. Désolé." He punctuates the last three words with three quick hops, his eager expression falling into contentment when Maura laughs.

He takes very good care of her. Especially on this day.

There are several American flags on Jane's headstone already, telltale signs that Frost and Korsak, and several others have already been there.

Jai leans to stake his drawing to the ground by her name, a picture of Jane he's done from a photo in the den, the words "Ameracan Heero" written underneath.

"Hi, Nona!" he says, "Happy birthday!"

Maura had tried to explain to him, when he was old enough to understand, that she was technically his grandmother too. That T.J. was his uncle, and his little girl, Angela Jane, was his cousin.

"Your mommy was my daughter," she'd said. "Mine and your Nona's the way Angie Jay is T.J.'s little girl. That makes you my grandson."

And Jai had mulled this over for a long moment before shrugging in an achingly familiar way. "Does it matter the ways?" he'd asked her earnestly. "Can't I please still call you Mama?"

Like she could refuse him anything.

Now Jai is telling Jane about his first day of third grade, and how he and Maura had fought over the appropriateness of a bowtie.

"Maybe for picture day, Nona," he says. "If I can get one with stripes!"

Maura chuckles, and Jai turns to her. He has lost two teeth on the left side, and his grin is endearing and lopsided, and Maura indulges herself by capturing his face in her hands and kissing both cheeks.

"Mi amor," she says.

"Can I go say hi to Sissa?"

Maura sighs. This conversation had also ended in a stalemate.

"Bend and put these by Nona's name for me, darling," she says, holding out her bouquet. And once he's done as she's asked, she points in the direction of Ari's marker.

"Stake the drawing firmly this year," she calls to his retreating form.

Maura shakes her head fondly, and turns back.

"Hello, love," she says softly. "Happy birthday."

She doesn't visit Jane every year, but this one is a big one, sixty, and the day is bright and sunny and Maura had not been able to resist.

"Well, we've made the name change official," she says. "He's been calling himself Jai for how long now? Sometimes, when I'm angry, and I call him James, he doesn't even recognize I'm speaking to him." She puts her hand into her pocket, fishing around for the picture she'd brought along with her.

"James Air Isles to Jai Clement Isles. He came up with it all on his own." She clicks her tongue, teasing. "Clever thing, detective. That's all you."

She finds the corner of the photo in her pocket and pulls it out. Jane and Maura on Jane's 50th birthday, both laughing, both of their faces smeared with cake.

She looks over to where Jai kneels in front of Ari's grave, gesturing wildly as he tells her a story. Maybe this year, he will hear that _Ari_ is his mother.

Maybe this year he will hear that it does not make Maura any less his mother.

"God," she says to Jane, "he has your eyes. He wears your smile."

…

Jai finds a rock for his collection on the way home. He holds it up to Maura for her inspection, and she tells him that wind and water and heat have all come together to compress the sand.

"It's a cycle," she says. "That's what makes all those pretty lines zig zag like that. It's solid, but at one point it was just sand and water."

"When?" Jai asks. "Like ten years ago?"

Maura shakes her head, reaching out to pull him closer with a gentle tug to the back of the neck.

"Much longer than that. Hundreds of thousands of years."

Jai is quiet, contemplating this. It's not until they are climbing into her car that he speaks again.

"Just sand and water, Mama? Are you sure?"

Maura nods at him in her rearview mirror. "I'm sure," she says. "Buckle up, buttercup."

He giggles and does as he's told. "Sand and water," he says to no one in particular.

Maura looks one more time in the direction of Jane's headstone. "Yes," she says.

"Sand and water. And a million years gone by."


End file.
